Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-09-10

L III III ttiNL% ohSh III Ot' WIN
J But / shall show you this morning that
the best rights that women can own,
she already has in her possession; that
her position in this country at this time
Is not one Of commiseration, but one Of
congratulation; that the
GRANDEUR AND POWER
OF her realm have never yet been APP
preciated; that she sits to-day on n
throne % high, that all the thrones of
earth piled on top each other would not
make for her a foot stool. Here is the
platform on which she stands. Away
down below it are ballot-box and the
congregational assemblage and the leg
~islative hall. Woman always has voted
and always will vote. Our great
gr~andfathers thought they were by
their votes putting Washington into
the presidential chair. No. His
mother, by the principles she taught
him, and by the habits she intoxicated,
made him president. 1t was n Christian
mothers hand dropping the ballot
when Lord Bacon wrote, and Newton
philosophical, and Alfred the Great
governed, and Jonathan Edwards
Numbered Of judgment to come. How
many men there have been in high po-
litical station, who would have been in
sufficient TO stand the test TO which
their moral principle was put, had it
| not been for a wife's voice that en-
couraged them to do right. and a wife's
prayer that sounded louder than the
clamor of partisanship! Why, my
friends, the right Of suffrage, as we
men exercise it, seems to be a feeble
thing. You, a Christian man, come up
to the ballot-box and drop your vote.
Right after you comes a libertine, or a
sOt-the ofl%scouring OF the street-and
he drops his vote; and his vote counter
acts yours. But If in the quiet of home
life a daughter by her Christian de-
meanor, II wife by her industry, a
mother by her faithfulness, casts a vote
in the right direction, then nothing can
resist it, and the influence of that vote
will throb through the eternities.
My chief anxiety then is, not that
have other rights accorded
her; but that she, by the grace Of God,
rise up to the appreciation of the glori-
u rights size already possesses. This
morning | shall only have time to speak
of one grand and all-ahsorbing right
that every wo nan has. and that is to
MAKE HOME HAPPY.
That realm no one has ever disputed
with her. Men come home at moor or
at night, and they tarry a compara-
lively little while; but she, all day long,
governs it, beauties it, sanctifies it. 1t
is within her power to make it the most
attractive place on earth. 1t is the
only calm harbor in this world. You
kenw as well rs DO, that this outside
ldane and the business world, is a long
scmee of jostle and contention. The
kno who has a dollar struggles TO
worp it; the man who has il not strug-
gles to get it. Prices up. Prices
dcwn. Losses. Gains, Misrepresen-
tations. Gougings. Underselling.
Buyers ~depreciating; statesmen exager-
ating. Tenants seeking less rent;
landlords demanding mere. Gold fidg-
ETY.. Struggles about office. Men who
are in trying to keep in; men out trying
to get in. Slips. Tumbles. Defalca-
tons. Panics. Catastrophes. q wo-
man! thank God you have a home. and
that you may be queen in it. Better
be there than wear Victoria's coronet.
Better be there than carry the purse of
a princess. Your abode may be hum
BILE, but you can. by your faith in God,
and your cheerfulness of ~demeanor,
gid IL with splendors such as an up
holsterer's hand never yet kindled,
There are abodes in the city-humble,
two stories; four plain, %unpapered
rooms; undesirable neighborhood; and
yet there is a man here this morning
who would die on that threshold rather
than surrender it. Whyp 1t is home.
Whenever he thinks of it, he sees angels
of God lowering around it. The lad
ders OF heaven are let down to that
house. Over the child's rough crib
there are the chantings OF angels as
those that broke over Bethlehem.
1T Is HOME.
These children may come up after
awhile, and they may win high posi-
ton, and they may havs an aflluent
residence; but they will not until their
dying day forget that humble roof, un-
de: which their father rested, and their
mothes sang. and their sisters played.
0, if you would gather up all tender
memories, all the lights and shades of
the heart, all ~banauetings and re-
unions, all filial, fraternal, pa%ternal,
and conjugal affections, and you had
only just four letters with which to
spell out that height and depth, and
length and breadth, and magnitude
and eternity of meaning, you would,
with streaming eyes, and tremb ing
voice, and agitated hand, write it out
in those four living capitals, HOME.
What right does oma want that is
grander than to be queen in such a
realmp Why, the eaglets of heaven
cannot fly across that dominion.
Horses, painting and with lathered
tanks. are not swift enough to u to
the outpost of that realm. They
say that the sun never sets upon the
English empire; but have to tell you
that on this realm of woman's in6u-